OK time to spill the beans . . .:wink2:
It's all to do with Leptin resistance. You can google it and read proper detailed explanations of it but my take on it is this:
Leptin's is a hormone discovered in 1994 which tells our brain when there is fat in our body.
Sometimes things go wrong (for reasons such as overeating carbs, emotional/physical stress or stress for the body such as not getting enough sleep or not giving the body a break between meals (at least 4/5 hours) to get over a meal before putting the next one in.
When things go wrong, the brain can't detect any leptin so can't detect fat. It immediately shuts down the fat-burning process and instead burns sugar for energy. This leads to constant cravings and needing to eat often.
To kick the system back into being Leptin sensitive again, and to start burning fat again instead of sugar, a diet of very little carbohydrate but most of all no sugar is recommended for at least 21 days.
The symptoms of leptin resistance sounded so much like me, I decided to give it a try. Now I'm not one for being restricted normally but there was no counting or weighing and I can honestly say I wasn't hungry once from the day I began and when you get on the scales EVERY DAY and they're down, it's enough to keep you on track.
Frightening, when you start reading packets and tins, how much sugar there is in everything. Oh, and things like low fat mayo and low fat coleslaw have more sugar in that the full fat varieties.
Even some fruit/veg are too sweet so nothing like tomatoes, carrots or strawberries. You can google it and get food lists but to give you an idea, a typical day for me would be:
Bacon & Egg & mushrooms (you could fry as long as it was in a good oil such as walnut or almond - they are full of the right sort of fat which doesn't block your arteries.) And apparently a protein brekkie tells the body its going to be a fat burning day.
salad with olives, chopped nuts, coleslaw, peppered mackerel/chicken/turkey/basically any meat or fish, and as much of it as you want. . . . really.
Meat or fish again for tea, you can use a sauce/gravy if you can find a low sugar one, as many different veggies as you can find.
For puddings I would have sugar free jelly, (my naughty bit an inch of squirty cream) and a handful of broken nuts (mixed) NOT PEANUTS they are legumes and not allowed
no fruit or dried fruit or juice.
There you are. That's it. No hunger pangs, nothing and for me, the best bit is no energy dips.
I believe the weight loss steadies off after the initial period and I intend adding in things like tomatoes, carrots, juice etc this next week and perhaps a bit of rice or potato but I'm going to go steady. I have another 1 - 1.5stone to lose and I might follow Slimming Worlds diet for that as I'm not sure it would be sensible to stay on this for longer and it doesn't say you have to.
But it makes sense not to overdo the carbs and sugar again as it's soon going to make you leptin resistant again.
(The break between meals and leaving at least 12-14 hours overnight with no food is imperative apparently for the body to restore itself.)
I'm taking a multi vit too as it makes sense.
I know it's not sensible but in the past I have eaten 800-900 cals a day and not lost this much, nothing like.
And for the record, I've done no exercise at all.
I don't claim to know it all . . . please don't think that, but I thought by sharing it might help others who like to see results quickly to be inspired!
Google leptin resistance, there's actually quite a lot on it. I stumbled on when I was looking into why you get cravings for carbs, which I admit I was getting every hour or two and getting bigger and I thought, this just can't go on!
I don't know if this is similar to any other diets but the point for me was what was going on inside the body. It made so much SENSE. It wasn't just about "don't eat that because it'll make you fat" or "don't have too much because that's greedy".
So there you are, the mystery is over.